The Space Between
by ELCBian
Summary: Jate angst. Jack and Kate can't seem to be able to fix their relationship. They're hurt and afraid. I suck at summaries.
1. Chapter 1

This is my first and i think only fanfic, sorry if it sucks... This has 2 chapters i think, maybe 3 but i'm not sure.

Ship: Jack/Kate with some Jack/Ana  
Genre: Angsty-ish.  
Warning: Takes place after The Long Con  
Summary: They can't find the way to fix their relationship.  
Rating: T because of some language  
Disclaimer: I don't own Lost or anything that has to do with it, just borrowing for fun, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Borrowing the title from Dave Matthews Band.

**The Space Between**

"So this is how a heartbreak feels" she thinks. Tom never broke her heart, she shattered his, that was for sure, but what she felt when he left him, what she feels after his death is quite different from a heartbreak. A sick mixture of love and guilt, a sad feeling of something that was never meant to last.

This is different. So different she's been crying her eyes out for the past hour hidden in the jungle. This isn't her, this isn't her at all, and she ponders the idea that she, in fact, is changing. Maybe a tiger can change its stripes after all. And now again she's playing the scene in her head: following Jack into the jungle, watching every single step so he doesn't hear her, Ana Lucia waiting next to a small waterfall, him taking off his clothes after stripping her down, the kissing, the playing in the water. And she can't take it anymore so she runs, she runs and she falls, and after watching the gash in her arm bleed for what it feels an eternity, she finally breaks down. Now here she sits, all covered in dirt, blood and tears, tired of feeling this way, eyes dried and emptied out.

But then, she hears something, footsteps coming her way, and before she can get up to hide he sees her.

"What happened to you Kate?" He says, kneeling down in front of her grabing her arm examining her wound. "Nothing" she replies, hastily and harsh, moving away from his grasp, so he looks up to her eyes with an expression of not understanding why she's so angry. She wouldn't have answered that way one day ago, before witnessing his encounter with Ana, instead she would have been happy that he again was speaking to her, that he seemed at least a little worried about her - like old times, like before the kiss. Before she ran and escaped to Sawyer, before Sawyer had played them all - played her – and before this past two weeks, when he stopped avoiding her and seemed to be forgiving her.

Before she got her hopes up again. Before she realized her mistake and the fact that she couldn't run away from this feeling anymore, that she didn't want to run anymore.

Now she's hating him for being with that other woman, for leading her on, making her think he had forgiven her, that things were going to be ok between them again. Jack's calling her name and getting exasperated, but she just gets up and turns away. This time he doesn't let her go, but is not a warm treatment she's getting, instead, he just grabs her by her good arm and tells her, with a hint of contempt, that she has to get her arm fixed, that the infection will probably kill her in this island and, wheter she likes it or not, he won't take her childish behaviour and will just get the job done.

She just gives him the most vicious looks he's ever gotten and tells him she'll ask Sun for help, walking away as fast as she can. "She's right", Jack thinks, "Sun can help her too." So he just follows her, for a while that is, until her quick pace is too quick for him to keep. Well, he actually doesn't want to do the effort so after a while, when she's almost out of his sight, he just turns around and heads to the caves, pretty sure the beach is near enough for her to be safe.

The caves are almost empty, most of the survivors off, doing whatever they do to kill the time. He's relieved they won't bother him with some silly question, or worst, that they'll give him that look that tells him they still have in mind his position on the island had been undermined by that fucking redneck.

But then he sees her, waiting for him in the makeshift infirmary, and he feels sick to his stomach, because he can't believe he's this kind of guy, the guy that fucks a girl just for escaping his feelings, his pain. So he turns around, and is pretty sure she saw him leaving the caves, but for the moment he can't deal with her. "How the hell am i going to tell her?"

She flirted with him since the moment they met at that airport bar and he had taken it lightly, it didn't hurt at the moment. And when he re-met her on the island her friendship had helped him cope with his problems with Kate. It felt good to have someone with all her attention on him, it felt good not having to worry if the woman he wanted was going to run to some other man, she was easy to be with, a kind of person so blunt he got that feeling of "what you see is what you get". He felt she had his back from the first moment, and she did, supporting him through his Army idea, helping him search for the gun stash, keeping the secret that they had found the goddamn guns, relocated them and were waiting for the right moment to set the island order again and give Sawyer and Locke a lesson.

She was an ally and he was thankful for that, and that's the reason he couldn't turn her down when she kissed him that afternoon. She had this satisfied look, and he realized Ana Lucia was one of those women who got what she wanted, and she had made clear she wanted Jack from day one. He doubted at first, but Kate's face kept coming to his mind, reminding him he couldn't have her now, that she wasn't the person he thought she was, or maybe she actually was the person he feared she was. So he indulged his self-destructive side and kept this game with Ana. A game that turned way too serious that day and led him to the realization that he didn't wanted to be with her at all.

He had done some fucked up things in his life before, but he never intended of hurting her. He's used to fight his dark instincts all the time and it'd been a while since that part of him came out, but he was always aware how and when that happened, so it surprised him to see that the gray was slowly creeping through his soul, that he was becoming the person his father taught him not to be.

So he braces himself and heads back to the caves, determined to do this before things might get worse. He doesn't have to go all the way back to the caves, he finds Ana in the well-worn path to the beach, and for her look it seems she knows exactly what he's gonna tell her. He tries to apologize but before he can elaborate she cuts him with a "Don't worry, I knew from the beggining how this thing was going to end". He looks at her incredulous and feels like shit, but again she tells him not to worry, she enjoyed what they had and she knows he's one of the good guys, a complicated and totally confused guy, maybe too fucked up for her, and she assures him she knows he never meant to use her. "Not on purpose" she ends, giving him a pat on the shoulder and a rehearsed smile, going back to the beach.

And he's left there, wondering what to do next and actually thanking the universe or whatever for the easy way out he got. He's sorry, of course he is, that's another guilt he'll have to carry now but is not like he wasn't carrying one before, it just changed its form and it's actually less heavy now; he just wonders how is he going to look at her face again without feeling completely ashamed.

Kate's sinking. Sun just finished dressing her arm and she felt the urge to go and do the one thing that made her feel better, even for the slightest moment.

He called her childish, and even if Jack stopped and tried to help her she could feel he didn't wanted to be there with her, "So why for the past two weeks he was behaving like that?" "I guess it was just an act, no, Jack wouldn't do that." And then it hits her, "He wasn't so angry because he was moving on, moving on with Ana". She doesn't understand all the things that are going through her mind, through her heart. One thing she knows is that she should have never let this happen, anything, and while trying to convince herself she regrets having met Jack she sees Ana Lucia come out of the bushes with a strange look on her face... "Defeat" Kate concludes. A small smile creeping through her lips, she hides it inmediately, not because she doesn't want to hurt Ana's feelings but because she doesn't want to expose her own. They glare eachother and it shows the reason they'll never be friends, they want the same man.


	2. Chapter 2

I'm so thankful for your kind reviews! never expected them, so a million times Thank you! You guys rock.

This definetly will have a third chapter and i think will be the last one, i'm praying for the right closure because so far i have no idea how to end this. Oh well.

Uh before i forget, sorry for the grammar mistakes! English is not my first language so sometimes something escapes me. I hate it, i'm a grammar nazi but from time to time my brain stops working, so again, i'm really sorry.

Idon't own Lost, etc etc.

----------

Kate feels a light appear, the hope again creeping through her, but soon she takes care of her walls, she isn't gonna bring them down again... not even if she has the suspicion that Jack and Ana are no longer an item.

She spends the next couple of days wondering why he hasn't come to the beach, thinking about his brown eyes, the way they reveal some green with the right light, the warmth that used to come out of them for her. Instantly she punishes herself, she remembers then the hard expression he had since she ran away, the way he had looked at her after she got caught by the Others and the way he pushed her away for weeks. She also replays a million times the scene in the waterfall, again and again, she thinks about his hands on Ana's body, his tongue entering her mouth.

She fully undestands now the way he felt when she ran to Sawyer, the betrayal and the anger, but specially the pain. And yet again she beats herself up, because she knows it's her fault. She is the one that screwed things over just when they seemed to be right between them.

She's determined to kill the feeling - the love - because this is not who she is, and she's made a lot of mistakes on this island that have cost her too much. She's determined and is sure she'll clam up again, leaving all this behind.

-----

A week has passed now and he's been trying to keep busy at the caves, still he hasn't gone to the beach, Ana's there, and he really wants to avoid her, but worst, Kate's there as well, and she's been haunting him for the past days.

"Why was she crying that day" Jack wonders "Why did she seem so sad, so broken", "How did she fell and hurt herself? she rarely falls..."

Her name has become a mantra he whispers softly, like maybe he'll figure Kate out by calling her name over and over again. He's tired of feeling this way, his body aches for her company, he would give the world to hear her voice calling him, to see those pleading eyes asking him for forgiveness, and yet, his brain keeps feeding his resentment, his anger.

He's also trying to play that game. The one where you're constantly finding the other person flaws, replaying the crap she made you have, the lies she told, every single second she spend with that other man, the way she used you to get things she wanted. He can't let her back in, she'll keep hurting him because that's who she is, a person that can't help destroying everyone around her.

"But, is she?" "Is she really that terrible person?" He can't seem to relate those green eyes, so full of caring, those eyes he can read so well, with the lies that come out of her mouth. He can't relate that passionate kiss she gave him with her feet running from him. He can't relate all the moments they spent together and that _thing_ they seem to have, with all the moments she spent with Sawyer and that other _thing_ they seem to share.

"Who is she really?" he asks himself, the woman he thought he knew, the woman that made him fall in love, or the manipulative criminal that apparently does have a connection with Sawyer?

"Is she like him?" "No, she can't be."

Deep down he knows she isn't, he's looked into her soul a couple of times, she has her dark secrets, but don't they all have those? Is weird how the fact that she's a fugitive doesn't affect his feelings for her. The problem is that he trusts her but doesn't trust her at the same time, not because her criminal past, but because she's a woman. A woman that has power over him, a woman who's bewitching him and made him fall again. He can't put himself into that position, but isn't him already there?

So one afternoon, despite his head telling him not to, Jack decides he's been MIA from the beach for too long and "they" must be wondering why's that. He kinda laughs at himself at some point, needing an excuse to go see her, at least to be in the same place as she is. As he walks to the beach he can't help but smile thinking about her eyes, the way she looks playfully at him sometimes, with a devilish grin spread in her face that makes him want to take her right there, or maybe those eyes full of passion that burn a hole into his soul when they're talking alone by the fire. He lets himself, just for a second, to delve into his love, and then snaps back out of it and forces himself to think about the way she nursed Sawyer with so much care, when she gave him that haircut or spent all her time in his tent for days.

Both of them are in that never ending circle, in their guts they know there's no use for trying to fight the urge they have to be together, but still, those fanthoms in their heads try to remind them of all the suffering, all the bad consequences that can come out of them, surrendering to their emotions.

Slowly their anger is fading away. The guards are still up but after weeks of being apart, the resentment is getting lost into their desire, a yerning has replaced the spite.

When he feels the breeze coming from the sea he starts getting nervous, Ana Lucia left his mind days ago, and even if he still feels bad for what happened she certainly isn't making him anxious. The thought of finding Kate sitting with Sawyer outside his tent almost makes him go back to the caves, but after Hurley greets him loudly with a "Dude!" there's no turning back. So he smiles and keeps going, delivering some water bottles and dried boar to some of the castaways; he realizes he's seen most of them over the week, almost everyone has gone to the caves for some reason, _almost_ everyone, because nor Kate or Ana have shown up there.

He's trying to play it cool, so he's not searching the beach so obviously, but still, when her frame appears, slowly walking back to camp from the jungle, he can't help to jolt a little. She's alone, and she looks tired, but her hair is hunging loose upon her shoulders and she has that purple top he likes so much, and for Jack, there's nothing else to do, there's nothing else to fight.

Her presence alone, oblivious to his own, is enough to make him feel alive again, and then the most pure sense of happiness invades him. He's staring at her, lost in the sight of Kate, and even though Claire's talking to him, asking him for advice about Aaron's rash, he's not listening to her, he's too concetrated in the way her chest is rising when she breaths, how her curls are getting a little lighter from all the sun she's been taking, how she got some new freckles, how her lips seem fuller now.

Kate's concrentrated, trying to open her backpack to leave some fruit in Sayid's tent when she starts feeling a familiar fire. She looks up, and Jack has his eyes fixed on her. Instantly her skin's boiling and her heart's pounding out of her body. This is what she's been waiting all these days, to see him again, and now more than ever she wants to run to him and kiss him, to show him the truth about this whole situation, to make him understand this never was about anyone but themselves, not a third or a fourth wheel, but about their fears, about the crumbling walls and their attempts to keep them up, about the fact, so certain, so undeniable, that there's one feeling you can't fight, there's one thing that'll make your life turn upside-down, that'll make you do stupid things, but that never, never, will go away.

It feels like hours have passed, and they're still locked in eachother's eyes. Claire walks away smiling, the whole camp has always known something that Jack and Kate seem to deny most of the time but that's evident to everyone else. Their bodies are frozen, neither wanting to move, waiting for the other to take the first step. Kate knows she has to do it first, so she does, she convinces her body to move while silencing her doubts, slowly approaching Jack, cautiously, as if one wrong step would drive Jack away, until they're only a couple of feet away.

"That wasn't so hard" she says to herself, although what's coming next, she's sure, won't be as easy as her little walk. Still holding their gaze, another eternity passes by, until Jack opens his mouth:

"Hi."


End file.
